Nice clip, thanks for sharing. I miss cab rides. Once on a quiet Sunday in the late 90s I drove an EMU from Shorncliffe to Sandgate... just followed the instructions :) Good times.
I was four when the driver heard me near wallon he let me open the doors, horn , break etc until Thomas street before ipswich, I still remember 14 years on
Cab rides were always illegal here, but if entry to the cab was done discreetly, you could get away with it. Nowadays, generally speaking, punishment of drivers letting unauthorised persons in the cab could be quite severe. So that has essentially wiped it out.
@@Nic_B Years ago a suburban train in Sydney flew off the tracks on a sharp curve near Helensburgh because the driver had collapsed. Almost anyone riding in the cab, including my nephew when 11, could have safely stopped the train. The response however was to very strictly enforce the ‘nobody in cab’ rule. Rules made by people who had never been in a cab.
A beaut clip as always tressteleg1. Thinking back, I can remember when the maximum 'permissible' speed for Queensland Railways trains was 80 kph. Then, with the introduction of the electric EMU's in Nov 1979, these suburban units were allowed to travel up to 100 kph max on certain sections of line but gee.............haven't things changed 'speed wise' for Queensland's narrow 3 ft 6in gauge with the introduction of the HS Interurban sets (up to a max 140 kph) and of course these long distance travel electric and diesel tilt trains (up to a max 160 kph).
Some of the 70s I can remember. I was 3. OTC commercials with the song "memories" and the old Greek or Italian nonna crying because we could overseas finally and Peter Beatty being qld minister for transport introduces emu electrics.
The tilt train did over 200km/h in a test run somewhere up north which makes it officially the fastest narrow gauge train in the world. There’s apparently a plaque up in the driver’s cab or the end that performed the test.
Rail fans in other states who think QR is a joke with its narrow gauge are just showing their ignorance. AFAIK Qld has more electrified track than the rest of Australia added together.
Finally got to travel on this one a few weeks ago. Was going out west on "the spirit of the outback" and the rain stopped it from getting back to Brisbane in time. They shipped us up to Rockhampton on the tilt train to catch it from there. I can only think of one flaw, they changed the display inside away from the front view to some crappy movie for most of it 😂 Just watching the front view and speed would've been so much more interesting for the majority of the ride. For all the flaws of Queensland, their trains really are well ahead of the rest of the country.
David Richmond Agreed. And fans who laugh at Queensland with its narrow gauge have probably never experienced it to realise that our trains are up with the best and the electric tilt train on test was clearly the fastest in Australia by a long margin. Besides having track smoother than much of Melbourne, the majority of the suburban train fleet now has free Wi-Fi in every carriage and quite a few trains have toilets as well.
I could watch this all day long. What is it about railways. I dream about them,I run out to look everything I hear one,diesels especially. I'm 45 and always wanted to be a qr train driver,or pacific national. Just can't get my foot in the door. Cheers for vid
There is something about rail vehicles. Too bad your career dreams never happened. I was lucky in that the chance came to drive Melbourne trams as trams had always been the stronger interest for me.
Very cool, at 9:10 going past the old resurfacing machines. Looked like a Unimat Junior, an old xwing reggie and the seperate DTS machine. The machines sure have come a long way since then.
Pretty ironic isn't it, the fastest actually operating up to 160 kph train in the country is running on the narrowest gauge.. while NSW has the now antiquated XPT which could achieve this years earlier is restricted due to poor track etc.. we really are playing catch up to the rest of the world when we should be world leaders along side China & Japan
After the diesel tilt train hit a curve too fast ?10 years ago and rolled one night in weather which may have been foggy, the electric tilt train has been slowed somewhat but may still reach 160 in places. I have not been on it for sometime. Nevertheless New South Wales and Victoria are pathetic and apparently at least some of the standard gauge in Victoria is little improved from the disastrous upgrade 10 or so years ago. But who cares about railways? Roads get nearly all the money.
XPT is permited 160, but most of that is south of Wagga Wagga & V/Line V/Locity DMUs see 160, but like the XPT, only in tiny snippits. Prospector also sees 160 in service.
Travelled on this train from Rockhampton to Roma St many times while dating a Brisbane Lady. Only got stuck once at Bundy and we did the trip backwards as the lead Loco was shut down
Hello, I am just wondering may I have permission to use some footage around 11:44-12:23 for an educational video that I am currently creating. The video will be a UA-cam uploaded episode of my series, "Engines of Queensland Rail" and I would like to use it for my upcoming Diesel Tilt Train episode if that's alright with you. I will credit you in the video.
@@w_avor I can’t be absolutely certain with this train, but certainly around the suburban area such a noise can signify when the train moves from one radio contact area to the next. They don’t have to do anything about it that I know of. As you say, it can signify ATP or AWS. Without seeing whether the driver responded, it’s impossible to rule those out either.
@@w_avor I think that in fact you already know more about this subject than I do. I’m largely just the cameraman with just a little extra knowledge on some matters.
Good content but it is sad to see these types of services being a commodity in this country. Also, we need a national passenger rail or the network is doomed
Well the purpose of 99.5% of them is simply to transport people. The other tiny bit is trains like the Ghan and IP which are a holiday similar to a ship cruise, they are not general public transport.
+Taurean Lea Hi Taureen. It is probably part of the nation-wide Rail Safety act. It appeared a little after the terrible derailment at Waterfall (Sydney) when a driver died at the controls and the Tangarra tried to go round a 60 km curve much too fast. The silly thing is that if almost anybody else were in the cab at that time, they could have somehow or other stopped the train before the disaster occurred.
Sad thing is the railway was aware of the deadly flaw with their deadman system and the possibility of an overweight driver being incapacitated and not triggering it.
Back in 2009 I was allowed in the cab of a 2400 class down Towoomba Range. They even let me at the controls with supervision. Kept it at notch 3 and used the Westinghouse to check its speed. I will never forget it.
Its a shame the carins tilt train dont have the camera view so u can see up front and how fast its going and maybe nsw should look at getting there trains like these (the desiel tilt)
True, but only south of Beenleigh. It is a bit of a slow jog between there and Brisbane. Springfield has some lively running also. I’m not certain about Ipswich - Rosewood.
Surely going up and down the speed limit range would drive me crazy. If it's supposed to be a hi-speed tilt-train then it should be able to handle the curves at a higher speed, as some sections of the track are 150kph the that should be the speed it is allowed to travel at. After all that IS the purpose of the tilt. The Italians solved that problem, so QR should take a leaf out of their book.
bushranger51 If you drive around any city in a car you will find the speed limits are often changing anywhere between 40 and 80 km/h. Train drivers know the road they are driving and simply take changes to speed limits in their stride. If you saw how much the Queensland track twists and turns in places you would understand how speed limits must vary. In fact around 2005 the Cairns tilt train tipped over near Bundaberg because the driver hit a curve too fast.
@@Nic_B Unless running late and desperately trying to catch up time (a rare event these days) drivers would just float from one speed board to the next unless the straight in between were a considerable distance.
@@TheSEQSuburbanTrainDriver Years ago when things were a bit more relaxed I got a lot of ‘Sly Drives’ (Unnofficial drives) so learned the principles from very experienced drivers mostly Sydney, also Melbourne and even one in London. See ua-cam.com/video/dR8gZ9tJeyI/v-deo.htmlfeature=shared if you wish. My video speciality is Driver’s Views of trams and trains but unfortunately nothing from QR.
Cameras rarely capture speed adequately. As the lineside view was taken not far from Rockhampton, the train probably had not yet reached its top speed of 160km/h.
Depends on the feel/ride/noise. On loco hauled trains to me, 110-115 km/h feels fast at night, but not often during the day. The rough riding, noisy Red Hen Railcars in Adelaide always felt fast, day or night above 80 km/h, top speed 88. It felt like 110 & sometimes on the Overland in the moonlight, you'd swear the countryside was flashing past @ 140? XPT was a dissapointment for me, you didn't notice the speed, too quet and smooth. But try the HST @ 200 with the door window open?.
Other factors come into consideration also. One is the condition of the trackwork. Something like a New South Wales CPH getting near 100 km/h on ordinary track with bolted rail joints felt like double the speed. British fans once told me that faster than 80 mph, you have no feeling of any extra speed.
What's the point of a fast train if it's slowing down cornering every few seconds on shitty old winding track ...? Should have just kept the sunlander and Capricorn with electric locomotives !!!
It costs money to straighten track, and it has been done here and there bit by bit. I think they are doing some straightening in the Glasshouse Mountains to Nambour stretch at the moment. Nevertheless I found some old timetables, and the Sunlander took 11:30 to get to Rocky, while in 2003 the electric tilt train took just 7 hours. Electric Capricorn was 2 hours slower. I know which I would prefer. However after the diesel tilt train tipped over north of Bundaberg around 2005, the Nervous Nellies added 45 minutes to the electric tilt train run to Rocky. I still would prefer it to the Sunlander. The theft of the 3900 class by the coal lines is unforgivable and I don’t know why nothing has been done about that. Running diesels under wires is madness.
The 3900 class most certainly were geared for passenger use and had hauled the Sunlander Brisbane to Rockhampton. In early electrification days there were not enough EMUs and one hauled an evening peak hour suburban train on the Beenleigh line and no doubt did other similar tasks. However they were no well suited for coal and from memory coal trains needed more of them to haul a standard 10k tonne coal train.
@@Nic_B If they were deemed ‘unsuitable’ for lightweight passenger trains, they were totally unsuited for coal traffic. The impression I got at the time was that the coal lines were in need of more locos so simply demanded them and never gave them back. If they wanted to, it would not be hard to change motor and axle gears with gears of different ratios to get more pull but with a lower maximum speed. It is foolish to run trains on imported oil fuel when the wires are overhead and electricity is locally generated.
Nice clip, thanks for sharing. I miss cab rides. Once on a quiet Sunday in the late 90s I drove an EMU from Shorncliffe to Sandgate... just followed the instructions :) Good times.
Yes, all the good fun is gone now, and new crazy rules have made QR staff less friendly. I never got a go with a QR electric, not so further south.
I was four when the driver heard me near wallon he let me open the doors, horn , break etc until Thomas street before ipswich, I still remember 14 years on
Same in a lot of places. Canadian Pacific no longer allows cab rides.
Cab rides were always illegal here, but if entry to the cab was done discreetly, you could get away with it. Nowadays, generally speaking, punishment of drivers letting unauthorised persons in the cab could be quite severe. So that has essentially wiped it out.
@@Nic_B Years ago a suburban train in Sydney flew off the tracks on a sharp curve near Helensburgh because the driver had collapsed. Almost anyone riding in the cab, including my nephew when 11, could have safely stopped the train. The response however was to very strictly enforce the ‘nobody in cab’ rule. Rules made by people who had never been in a cab.
A beaut clip as always tressteleg1. Thinking back, I can remember when the maximum 'permissible' speed for Queensland Railways trains was 80 kph. Then, with the introduction of the electric EMU's in Nov 1979, these suburban units were allowed to travel up to 100 kph max on certain sections of line but gee.............haven't things changed 'speed wise' for Queensland's narrow 3 ft 6in gauge with the introduction of the HS Interurban sets (up to a max 140 kph) and of course these long distance travel electric and diesel tilt trains (up to a max 160 kph).
Dave Murchie =
Some of the 70s I can remember. I was 3. OTC commercials with the song "memories" and the old Greek or Italian nonna crying because we could overseas finally and Peter Beatty being qld minister for transport introduces emu electrics.
The tilt train did over 200km/h in a test run somewhere up north which makes it officially the fastest narrow gauge train in the world. There’s apparently a plaque up in the driver’s cab or the end that performed the test.
Rail fans in other states who think QR is a joke with its narrow gauge are just showing their ignorance. AFAIK Qld has more electrified track than the rest of Australia added together.
210 km/h is the record
Finally got to travel on this one a few weeks ago. Was going out west on "the spirit of the outback" and the rain stopped it from getting back to Brisbane in time. They shipped us up to Rockhampton on the tilt train to catch it from there. I can only think of one flaw, they changed the display inside away from the front view to some crappy movie for most of it 😂 Just watching the front view and speed would've been so much more interesting for the majority of the ride.
For all the flaws of Queensland, their trains really are well ahead of the rest of the country.
David Richmond Agreed. And fans who laugh at Queensland with its narrow gauge have probably never experienced it to realise that our trains are up with the best and the electric tilt train on test was clearly the fastest in Australia by a long margin. Besides having track smoother than much of Melbourne, the majority of the suburban train fleet now has free Wi-Fi in every carriage and quite a few trains have toilets as well.
those trains looked so much better with the old livery
I’ll take your word for it. I have no idea what their colours are today.
@@tressteleg1 Yellow... and that's just about it
OK.
I could watch this all day long. What is it about railways. I dream about them,I run out to look everything I hear one,diesels especially. I'm 45 and always wanted to be a qr train driver,or pacific national. Just can't get my foot in the door. Cheers for vid
There is something about rail vehicles. Too bad your career dreams never happened. I was lucky in that the chance came to drive Melbourne trams as trams had always been the stronger interest for me.
Same here
😊👍
Very cool, at 9:10 going past the old resurfacing machines. Looked like a Unimat Junior, an old xwing reggie and the seperate DTS machine. The machines sure have come a long way since then.
Glad you liked it and was reminded of this ‘old tech’.
Pretty ironic isn't it, the fastest actually operating up to 160 kph train in the country is running on the narrowest gauge.. while NSW has the now antiquated XPT which could achieve this years earlier is restricted due to poor track etc.. we really are playing catch up to the rest of the world when we should be world leaders along side China & Japan
After the diesel tilt train hit a curve too fast ?10 years ago and rolled one night in weather which may have been foggy, the electric tilt train has been slowed somewhat but may still reach 160 in places. I have not been on it for sometime. Nevertheless New South Wales and Victoria are pathetic and apparently at least some of the standard gauge in Victoria is little improved from the disastrous upgrade 10 or so years ago. But who cares about railways? Roads get nearly all the money.
XPT is permited 160, but most of that is south of Wagga Wagga & V/Line V/Locity DMUs see 160, but like the XPT, only in tiny snippits. Prospector also sees 160 in service.
Travelled on this train from Rockhampton to Roma St many times while dating a Brisbane Lady. Only got stuck once at Bundy and we did the trip backwards as the lead Loco was shut down
😊👍
Hello, I am just wondering may I have permission to use some footage around 11:44-12:23 for an educational video that I am currently creating. The video will be a UA-cam uploaded episode of my series, "Engines of Queensland Rail" and I would like to use it for my upcoming Diesel Tilt Train episode if that's alright with you. I will credit you in the video.
That will be fine. Please send me the link when completed 😊
@@tressteleg1 Thank you and I will do that 😄
👍
4:31 What was that beeping noise? Is that ATP or AWS?
@@w_avor I can’t be absolutely certain with this train, but certainly around the suburban area such a noise can signify when the train moves from one radio contact area to the next. They don’t have to do anything about it that I know of. As you say, it can signify ATP or AWS. Without seeing whether the driver responded, it’s impossible to rule those out either.
@@tressteleg1It does look like there was a ramp there, but it didn't look like it was a bi-directional AWS ramp.
@@w_avor I think that in fact you already know more about this subject than I do. I’m largely just the cameraman with just a little extra knowledge on some matters.
Good content but it is sad to see these types of services being a commodity in this country. Also, we need a national passenger rail or the network is doomed
Well the purpose of 99.5% of them is simply to transport people. The other tiny bit is trains like the Ghan and IP which are a holiday similar to a ship cruise, they are not general public transport.
One day I would like to travel on the tilt train
It is something different, but you can’t get in the cab any more.
I will be going this saturday
I am now jealous.
Have fun! See if they still show train speed on the screens. I’m not sure if it still does 160 here and there.
Why are Cab rides illegal now?
+Taurean Lea Hi Taureen. It is probably part of the nation-wide Rail Safety act. It appeared a little after the terrible derailment at Waterfall (Sydney) when a driver died at the controls and the Tangarra tried to go round a 60 km curve much too fast. The silly thing is that if almost anybody else were in the cab at that time, they could have somehow or other stopped the train before the disaster occurred.
Sad thing is the railway was aware of the deadly flaw with their deadman system and the possibility of an overweight driver being incapacitated and not triggering it.
Back in 2009 I was allowed in the cab of a 2400 class down Towoomba Range. They even let me at the controls with supervision. Kept it at notch 3 and used the Westinghouse to check its speed. I will never forget it.
tressteleg1 When did that incident happen? Im quite curious.
31 January 2003
Its a shame the carins tilt train dont have the camera view so u can see up front and how fast its going and maybe nsw should look at getting there trains like these (the desiel tilt)
I personally have not ridden on the diesel tilt train. But you would think that if the electric has it, so would the diesel. I wonder why not.?
One of the designs for the units to replace XPTs (and Xplorers?) was a diesel tilt train. Not sure if they won the contract though.
I guess that’s a possibility.
funny to think in 2019 that i can scream down to the GC at 140kmh on the NGRs....albeit no serious corners though...
True, but only south of Beenleigh. It is a bit of a slow jog between there and Brisbane. Springfield has some lively running also. I’m not certain about Ipswich - Rosewood.
Surely going up and down the speed limit range would drive me crazy. If it's supposed to be a hi-speed tilt-train then it should be able to handle the curves at a higher speed, as some sections of the track are 150kph the that should be the speed it is allowed to travel at. After all that IS the purpose of the tilt. The Italians solved that problem, so QR should take a leaf out of their book.
bushranger51 If you drive around any city in a car you will find the speed limits are often changing anywhere between 40 and 80 km/h. Train drivers know the road they are driving and simply take changes to speed limits in their stride. If you saw how much the Queensland track twists and turns in places you would understand how speed limits must vary. In fact around 2005 the Cairns tilt train tipped over near Bundaberg because the driver hit a curve too fast.
@@Nic_B Unless running late and desperately trying to catch up time (a rare event these days) drivers would just float from one speed board to the next unless the straight in between were a considerable distance.
@@TheSEQSuburbanTrainDriver
Years ago when things were a bit more relaxed I got a lot of ‘Sly Drives’ (Unnofficial drives) so learned the principles from very experienced drivers mostly Sydney, also Melbourne and even one in London. See ua-cam.com/video/dR8gZ9tJeyI/v-deo.htmlfeature=shared
if you wish. My video speciality is Driver’s Views of trams and trains but unfortunately nothing from QR.
I love qr Queensland rail. I live in Brisbane so I went on those trains
I swear it doesn't look fast at all compared to real life when your on a train going 100km
Cameras rarely capture speed adequately. As the lineside view was taken not far from Rockhampton, the train probably had not yet reached its top speed of 160km/h.
Depends on the feel/ride/noise. On loco hauled trains to me, 110-115 km/h feels fast at night, but not often during the day.
The rough riding, noisy Red Hen Railcars in Adelaide always felt fast, day or night above 80 km/h, top speed 88. It felt like 110 & sometimes on the Overland in the moonlight, you'd swear the countryside was flashing past @ 140?
XPT was a dissapointment for me, you didn't notice the speed, too quet and smooth.
But try the HST @ 200 with the door window open?.
Other factors come into consideration also. One is the condition of the trackwork. Something like a New South Wales CPH getting near 100 km/h on ordinary track with bolted rail joints felt like double the speed. British fans once told me that faster than 80 mph, you have no feeling of any extra speed.
What's the point of a fast train if it's slowing down cornering every few seconds on shitty old winding track ...? Should have just kept the sunlander and Capricorn with electric locomotives !!!
It costs money to straighten track, and it has been done here and there bit by bit. I think they are doing some straightening in the Glasshouse Mountains to Nambour stretch at the moment.
Nevertheless I found some old timetables, and the Sunlander took 11:30 to get to Rocky, while in 2003 the electric tilt train took just 7 hours. Electric Capricorn was 2 hours slower. I know which I would prefer. However after the diesel tilt train tipped over north of Bundaberg around 2005, the Nervous Nellies added 45 minutes to the electric tilt train run to Rocky.
I still would prefer it to the Sunlander. The theft of the 3900 class by the coal lines is unforgivable and I don’t know why nothing has been done about that. Running diesels under wires is madness.
The 3900 class most certainly were geared for passenger use and had hauled the Sunlander Brisbane to Rockhampton. In early electrification days there were not enough EMUs and one hauled an evening peak hour suburban train on the Beenleigh line and no doubt did other similar tasks. However they were no well suited for coal and from memory coal trains needed more of them to haul a standard 10k tonne coal train.
@@Nic_B If they were deemed ‘unsuitable’ for lightweight passenger trains, they were totally unsuited for coal traffic. The impression I got at the time was that the coal lines were in need of more locos so simply demanded them and never gave them back. If they wanted to, it would not be hard to change motor and axle gears with gears of different ratios to get more pull but with a lower maximum speed. It is foolish to run trains on imported oil fuel when the wires are overhead and electricity is locally generated.